Lost in the furor this past weekend over the inexcusable traffic and parking mess that ruined the NASCAR Sprint Cup debut at Kentucky Speedway, followed by a slew of battered cars and bellowing accusations between drivers that riddled the IZOD IndyCar Series race on the streets of Toronto, was a story of refreshing honesty. Paige Duke, the former Miss Sprint Cup who was fired late last month after nude photos taken six years ago for her then-boyfriend appeared on the Internet, told her story to Amanda Ebersole at Skirts & Scuffs and Bob Pockrass at Scene Daily. It wasn't yet another case of a celebrity playing the victim when the camera caught them with their pants (and everything else) down. Rather, Ms. Duke stated how she would use the incident as a case study with which to warn women about avoiding having the same thing happen to them.
Despite the veneer of respect toward women to which modern society claims allegiance, the fact remains that this is a world that leers at attractive women while pretending to uplift them. This is also a world where inflicting embarrassment on public figures is a flourishing industry. Being able to humiliate one of those dumb NASCAR redneck trailer trash skanks? So much the better. The pictures were not only distributed, they were talked about, complete with directions to where they could be found, by high-profile NASCAR journalists.
It would have been easy, and profitable for Ms. Duke to cash in on her sudden, albeit unintentional, fame by picking up on any of the juicy offers available to appear in sordid… er, assorted softcore porn magazines. Instead, she has not only said no, she is using the occasion of her mistake to speak out about her faith. As she told Pockrass, “It’s a morality thing, how I (was) raised. I know I will have to answer to the Lord one day, and I don’t want to have to answer for something like that. That’s why I realize what I did was wrong six years ago. I shouldn’t have been doing that anyways for a boyfriend at the time. But I did make a mistake, and I’ve made my peace with it.”
The other key quote from Ms. Duke comes from what she told Ebersole: “I want girls to learn a lesson from this, not just about sending pictures, but about who you trust, being independent and not relying on your happiness to come from someone else.”
The world could use a few more Paige Dukes.
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